Burn This By Moonlight. (fragment)

Late May. Saturday evening. Walberswick, Suffolk. A heavy and persistent thunderstorm.

Some holidaymakers stand in the doorways of their rented beach houses, gossiping among themselves and with passers by. A handsome man with black hair stands in the doorway of his beach house watching the gathering storm.

Looking through a porthole window into his wooden house a simple crucifix made from nuts and bolts can be seen. A small banner indicating a primitive methodist connexion hangs nearby.  A momento of “the Paris Exhibition” is on display amongst artifacts made from bits of agricultural machinery. The man, Billy Granger, 43, an engineer, is stroking a lock of hair with his oily fingers.

Thunder overhead. Lightning at sea.

A man running away from his own madness pursued by a car alarm and the insane screeching of a performance of 'carmen' in a castle, pouring after him like a flailing mob of bats. He lays on a hay bail in a stubble field and surrenders his soul at a culminating point in the noise and hysteria, whereupon a star falls from the sky and a black dove flying up from the gound, wafts its wings in his face and releases his fever.

Woman’s voice, as if in a dream - a face lit by crackling flamelight

“I obliterate them...”





listen to the recording here - film in progress.

http://soundcloud.com/martinjcooke/burn-this-by-moonlight